Investigators now believe the 50-year-old man who died was struck by a hit-and-run driver.

“If you’re driving a car and you strike a person, hit a person, it’s an obvious thing and, why wouldn’t you stop immediately and pull over and check what happened to the person you hit and why would you keep going?” said the victim’s niece Emily Krejci.

Cleveland police say sometime between 12:45 and 1:10 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 10, someone hit Cantwell near Broadview and West Schaaf Road, and kept going. Until now, police were not sure how he was killed.

“I think maybe some relief to know what exactly happened to him because that was the first question is ‘what’ and then we can focus on ‘who’, who if we know some information on what, then it could lead us in a whole different direction,” she said.

Krejci says her uncle left behind two children, 13 and 18 years old. She says he did not deserve to die like this.

“He made mistakes in the past and people have said bad, terrible things about him, but he was getting his life together and he just goes to work and goes home, goes to work and goes home,” Krejci said.

Investigators say no witnesses have come forward and they do not know what type of car hit Gregory.

Surveillance video from a nearby store was only able to capture the ambulance arriving to treat him.

“I just saw him that day. I just dropped him off from work that afternoon, and you don’t know that four hours later you will never see them again,” said the victim’s niece.

“Someone hit someone with their car, so if there’s a neighbor who sees someone’s car damaged, that wasn’t damaged yesterday or a family member or a person who has talked or bragged, if they can come forward out of the kindness of their heart,” she said.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call Cleveland police.